Sunday, February 25, 2007

Since Stretch Monster week will be ending in just a few minutes and as we get ready for just a plain old boring week. I just want to thank everyone for stopping by and checking out all of these crazy posts about my favorite toy, Stretch Monster.

Here’s another thing that would’ve been very cool for all of us Stretch Monster kids to have worn on Halloween.

I found a Polaroid photo of some costumed kid’s that was actually taken in 1978 and used a vintage 1978 Collegeville box for the fake Stretch Monster mask and body suit. The kid wearing the Stretch Monster mask was originally wearing a Frankenstein mask. I’ll post the unaltered photo this October.

It was a hot and steamy afternoon close to the end of the school year and Mrs. Knewlman’s 2nd grade class just finished with Show and Tell. The class of about thirty students was in a jovial mood as they enjoyed seeing all the interesting items brought in by fellow classmates.

The time was thirty minutes after one o’clock and the third recess bell sounded. All of Mrs. Knewlman’s 2nd grade class filed outside for the last recess of the day. It was a typical normal recess.

At precisely forty-five minutes after one o’clock the children finished third recess and entered into Mrs. Knewlman’s 2nd grade class. A gasp, a shout and loud crying were heard through the classroom as Kenneth was the first on the scene to notice that his Stretch Monster was stabbed in the chest with a #2 pencil. Syrup blood oozed from the monster’s chest cavity and pooled onto Kenneth’s desk while all the children looked on in utter shock.

Reports from some of the classmates said that Kenneth was the last for Show and Tell and he gave a proud presentation to the class about Stretch Monster. He left Stretch Monster on his desk and was outside during the full duration of third recess. Mrs. Knewlman interviewed every student to find out who might have committed this gruesome crime.

Mrs. Knewlman removed the murder weapon and proceeded to bandage Stretch Monster with two large band-aids.

All the students were instructed to take their seats and sit quietly until the murderer confessed. She also handed Kenneth a box of tissue as he was distraught.

For the next hour until forty-five minutes after two o’clock, not one student had come forward to confess the crime. Mrs. Knewlman announced that no one would be able to leave their desk to catch the school bus until someone confessed.

Finally, at fifty minutes after two o’clock the murderer raised their hand and confessed to this horrific murder. The little murderer was actually a little murderess. A girl by the name of Misty had stabbed Stretch Monster. Her reason; was that she was jealous of Kenneth’s Stretch Monster as she wanted a Stretch Monster for herself. She had asked Kenneth earlier if she could have it. Kenneth said no.

During third recess she asked to go inside and use the restroom. She didn't use the restroom and and instead she purchased a five cent #2 official NFL football pencil out of the pencil machine. She sharpened the #2 pencil to a fine point and then carried out this act of murder.

She was apprehended and was served a swift punishment with a paddle to the rear.

The Stretch Monster murder case was closed.

Kenneth moved onto other toys and continued to bring items for show and tell. He became very popular after bringing a small plastic trash can filled with green ooze called Slime.

Misty spent the next day missing all recesses because she was writing sentences on the blackboard.

Since Stretch Monster never made the cover of any main stream magazines, I decided to make one up. At first I was going to put him on Famous Monsters, but I passed since that’s kind of an obvious choice and plus he never was part of Filmland. So I wondered what would've landed him on a cover of a magazine that normally didn't feature toys or monsters? Oh yes, a news magazine that would have made some type of social comment about children's toys. I decided Time magazine was the perfect choice.

This is such a peaceful Christmas photo with a nicely decorated tree surrounded by dollies, a toy doctor’s kit, a Mickey Mouse Club playset, and a STRETCH MONSTER! RARR ARRGHH!!

Oops, sorry about that. I kind of got carried away. The Stretch Monster in this vintage photo from 1978 has a name and his name is Spencer and he belonged to a girl named Heather. (Not to be confused with the Heather from Stretch Monster Kid Snapshot #1.)

You can read all about Spencer on Heather’s blog, The Valedictorian of Bottom Feeders.

Thursday, February 22, 2007

As a collector of old cereal stuff I just had to squeeze in something this week related to cereal.

Unfortunately there was never any Stretch Monster Crunch cereal or for that matter not even a mini-Stretch Monster free in every box type of premium. The closest thing I could tie a connection between Stretch Monster and cereal is this old Cheerios box.

I refer to this 1978 box as the 2-Sided Star Wars Poster & Kenner Refund Box.

Naturally, General Mills offered many Star Wars premiums in their many brands of cereal since Kenner Toys, then owned by the Big G, was producing all the Star Wars toys.

Inside the box attached to one of the Star Wars posters was a refund sheet that listed and pictured some of Kenner’s toys.

Unfortunately only the Stretch Octopus Ollie and Olivia are shown, but at least Stretch Armstrong and our hero Stretch Monster are mentioned. Thus the very small cereal + SM connection!

All you had to do was cut the proof of purchase from the toy package and mail it in for a refund.

I loved the 2 Sided Star Wars posters and this one used to hang in my bedroom when I was a kid.

As you can see I only colored Vader’s lightsaber. I’m sure I was too anxious to hang it on the wall and decided to forget about coloring. Hey, I had plenty of coloring books to color and I didn’t have any works of art with a Star Destroyer hanging on my wall.

Ok, I think I’ll get my box of crayons out and finish it 29 years later.